Tempted By Elemental Evil

I’ve never been much of a Faerun fan. You know, the “Forgotten Realms” setting for D&D? Over the past few days, though, having begun to dip into the “Princes of the Apocalypse” campaign, I’ve become intrigued.

As I toy with what to prep for the D&D group that I run at the school (I’m a teacher, by the way), I find myself ever drawn closer to the Elemental Evil campaign that I’ve had on my shelf since about April. As I understand it, most of the work was done by those folks over at Sasquatch Games Studio (the creators of the fabulous Primeval Thule setting) and it is a much better read than the Tyranny of Dragons which came before it.

But, Faerun? Really?

Here’s why…

Forgotten Realms

I bought into the Forgotten Realms setting back with the 1st Edition D&D campaign set, published around 1987.  To be honest, I got the 1996 and the 2001 versions too. But I never played them.

For me, the Realms were a bit too “everything and the cat” in one setting. With so many other published settings to choose from, and having been hooked by Dragonlance for a good few years, I didn’t much take to Ed Greenwood’s setting.

It’s taken a few years, but one of my gaming buddies (who used to write for the setting’s first “Living Campaign”, Sarbreenar, on the convention circuit) has slowly warmed me up to the setting. I guess the fact that D&D‘s default setting is the Forgotten Realms was a strong nudge… and then came Elemental Evil.

From 1e to 5e

I was planning to convert the classic 1e “Temple of Elemental Evil” to D&D5e. It was all going well, even down to me having a printed copy of the module in re-reading process. And then… well, I thought, “Let’s just see what’s in the Princes of the Apocalypse book, eh?”

Fatal.

I’d bought the latest module mostly to have a printed copy of the extra Elemental-themed rules, like the new magic items and stuff on the Genasi. By the way, you can buy the Player’s Companion as a printed book now. Anyhow… no harm in looking, eh?

I was curious: how had they transported the Temple to the Forgotten Realms? In short, they hadn’t… not exactly.

I’m not going to spoil or review the book. I just want to give the reasons why I couldn’t resist going deeper and reading further:

1. There’s a really nice, self-contained region of the Forgotten Realms to let loose the players within.
2. Although the adventure is for Level 3 and up, there are some really nice lower-level side treks that link to the main plot – ideal for newbies!
3. The adventure is a pretty good mystery for the players to explore… with some neat dungeons to crash at the end.

What it does better than anything Realms that I’ve read before, however, is to introduce a part of the setting with a really practical mindset.

Dipping Into The Realms

When I ran a short opener for the setting, largely on the fly last night with a couple of my regular guys, we loved the Elemental themed stuff – especially a  couple of the many new “bad guys” in there!

It’s an amusing ride, this Elemental Evil adventure.

It’s a book that has done more for getting this old-time GM to play in the setting than anything else in the past 28 years or so. Wow.

Red Larch is a fitting village environment with lots of sub-plots and NPCs worth exploring. There’s some great side-trek adventures for the party to get distracted by. Most of all, though, the meat of the adventure is actually pretty cute. The “Temple of Elemental Evil” in the Forgotten Realms is something… distinct.

I want to run this for the guys at the school club. It’s great stuff, and they’ll love it – newbies and second year players alike!

If you’ve not had a look at it, whether because you don’t trust the new D&D or after getting burned on Tyranny of Dragons (not every GM likes THAT one), I’d recommend at least grabbing the free .PDF of the Player’s Companion I mentioned and checking it out.

Elemental Evil has made me smile. Let’s hope it’ll inspire some cool games for the kids too!

Game on!